Discovering Vermont

VT Weekend

Chris and I take Columbus Day Weekend off to discover Vermont. We find out - it's great! Click above for the photo tour. Warning: we took a lot of pictures of beer.

Beer Lists

Want to check out all the beers Chris and I have drank on our last two trips? The count is at 109 in seven days of traveling.

Find the lists here.

Day Four Report Part 2: Even Lobsters Love Guinness

We made it to Geary's with a bit of time to spare. Curtis was our friendly tour guide. We start the tour with a fresh-as-it-gets glass of Hampshire Special Ale - straight out of the tank!

This tour was by far the best of the trip. We took a leisurely 45 minutes to stroll through the brewing process. Here's bottling. . .

We got to check out the yeast doing it's work in the vats. . .

Curtis gave us every opportunity to ask questions and by the end I felt like I was ready to tote my own brewing kit home and get started. Really fascinating though was the story of the brewery business. Anyone who's been around a while can tell you the story of craft beer. Back in the 80's it was a sad time for American beer. There wasn't much taste to it. (Couldn't that be said for most stuff in the 80's?) Since prohibition, when there used to be breweries on every block in most cities, most never rebounded and instead we had mega companies like Coors and Budweiser adding as much water as possible to make beer as cheap as possible.

The two entrepreneurs to break the trend were Jim Koch, Sam Adams founder, and D.L. Geary. Both brewer's companies started taking off. Then each made a critical decision. Jim invested in marketing, Geary in really nice brewing equipment.

The rest is history. Sam Adams beer is now shipped all over the country and you're lucky to find Geary's at your specialty liquor store. Both beers I really appreciate, but there's something about Geary's flagship pale ale that is just so crisp and flavorful. It is now my go to beer for bringing to parties.

And now for something completely different. . .

Allagash! A Belgian-style brewery right down the street from Geary's. Starting off with a tasting we were led around the brewery (for the first time in safety goggles) to check out their process. I'm a big fan of wit beers, made with wheat instead of barley and it was nice to have a beer so totally different then the other 60 or so we'd had up until this point. (The list was starting to get mixed up in my head.)

Allagash started making Allagash White, Dubbel, Trippel, but now they even do crazy stuff like Belgian-style Porter. (I'm sure the monks would scoff at this.) They encourage their staff to experiment and when a batch isn't quite right for shipping to stores they'll send out an email to their listserv and have a special edition beer sale for one day. Usually its all gone in a few hours!

After all this drinking we were in need of some food . . . and more beer. We headed into downtown and what is apparently a popular hangout, Gritty McDuff's. Solid pub food, a round of beers, including Scottish Ale, of course and friendly people. A little tipsy, I was dropped off at the Portland office of my non-profit and the rest of the crew sobered up for the drive home.

Yes, all good beers come to an end. With 77 tastings under our belt (perhaps literally now, too) I knew that the journey wasn't over. We had just hit up one small corner of the country, there were more beers to be downed. Along the way, we'd discovered that good beer is about good brewers. Its about place, and pride in one's craftmanship. It's about experimenting and taking risks.

And yes, it's about getting drunk. - Cheers!

Day Four Report Part 1: Must all good beers come to an end?

Our last day of the trip, we nailed out of the ballpark. We started up early, and got some great recommendations from the Quimby House owner. He was an obvious lover of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park and gave me the best route to see the park despite the many winter road closings. His farewell was warm, if not a bit confused sounding: "Thanks for visiting Bar Harbor . . . in the Winter."

We set off on an hour drive through the park. Not all of us had hiking boots, so serious trail blazing was out of the question, but we caught some beach time. I remembered doing star-gazing at this same beach as a kid and trying to swim in the water, which apparently doesn't get above 50 degrees in the winter. I don't even want to imagine what it's like right now.

Still beautiful though. . .

We next started driving back down to Portland, and decided to map out the rest of the day. Should we rush and get more brewery tours in? Hang back maybe hit up a pub or two?

Our Good Beer Guide says you have to call ahead for Geary's tour, so we make some phone calls. I got put on hold for a while for Geary's waiting for, what turned out, the secretary to call a brewer and ask him to come in to do a tour. "How's 3:30 work for you?"

We looked at the clock. We could make it happen . . .

Day Three Report: Mt. Desert Island is reached

Day three was a bit of a missed connections day. Puritanical values still hold sway in New England, or perhaps it's just labor laws, so many places were closed for Sunday. We unsuccessfully attempted a few breweries, but ended up at a homey bar on the waterfront munching on free popcorn and beer that actually cost money for once. . . at 11am.

By the time we made it to Bar Harbor we were thirsty again, so after several failed attempts at closed storefronts, we swung into Geddy's. Geddy's just happens to be the biggest tourist trap restaurant on the island. It also happened to be open.

They also served me the biggest surprise of our trip - a bad beer! Puffin Pale Ale was absolutely disgusting, or should I say tasted like Bud Lite. Well, same thing. The waitress overheard my complaint and kindly brought me a new beer. The beer still remains a mystery. We don't know who the brewer is and I while I do remember seeing Puffin Pale Ale t-shirts at the Kennebunk Brewery, there doesn't seem to be anything on their website indicating they brew the stuff. Perhaps no one's interested in taking credit for this crappy stuff.

Full of beer, we went and bought more beer at the liquor store. Then we spent a good while hanging out at our luxurious Quimby House Inn. I think we were the only folks staying there, if you don't include the crazy cat that liked to hang upside down off the banister.

We soon got tired of drinking and headed over to the Jack Russell's Steak House and Brewery. Their beer was from the Maine Coast Brewing Company and the four beer sampler was so delightful, we decided all to get one. Some beers and apps later, we were ready to crash. This vacation was getting to be hard work, having to remember one beer from the next!

Beer Tour 2010 in Photos

Beer Tour reunion (all are invited) at my place, coming soon . . .

Day Two Report Part 2

We drove straight to Shipyard as soon as we got into the city, making the 3pm tour by a minute. Shipyard's tour was free and started off with a Jibber-Jabesque video, followed by a quick tour of the facilities. It was big, not Redhook big, but larger Smuttynose for sure. We also spied boxes for the other beer they brew - Peak Organic, Seadog, etc. (These guys really do brew every beer in Maine!) The last 20 minutes were in the tasting room, where we got generous samples of four of their beers, which it turns out we mostly drank down in Kennebunk.

Our tour guide was pretty awful commenting at some point that she doesn't really like beer and drink wine. But the beer was free. We also learned some interesting stories. The master brewer for Shipyard learned in Britain and brought back a recipe for non-traditional English bitter ale. Shipyard is the only brewery licensed to brew the recipe and they can't even put their logo on it. That's why there's a big ol' wort-hog on the label and no sign on Shipyard. It's damn fine beer and thankfully can be found back home at my local liquor store.

Next stop was Sea Dog Brewpub whose mascot is an awfully cute puppy with a sailor's yellow rain-hat. Their restaurant is a chain; there's a few locations in Maine and their South Portland location certainly felt a bit chainy and was located in a strip-mall, surrounded by a parking lot.

The beer there was certainly geared towards the masses. The beer list was pretty extensive with 10 different beers in the tasting for just $10. Some struck us as silly (Blue Paw Wheat Ale and Rasberry Wheat) and others were well done (Owls Head Light Ale and Old East India Pale Ale). The spinach dip was superb however and happy hour specials were just $3 a pint.

On to Sebago. You might think we couldn't drink any more beer, but oh, we could. We found ourselves a little unable to eat, but we happily downed some excellent beer. Chris and Adrian had the Stout aged in a bourbon cask, while Colleen and I opted for something lighter: Hefeweizen and Runaround Red.

While posting a gorgeous picture of the stout on facebook I noticed an update from a friend that lives in Rhode Island and whose couch I, once upon a time, crashed on for a summer.

"Jodie Goodnough is in Portland. Maine, I've missed you so."

I called. Our conversation was something like this:

Hey are you in Portland?

Yeah.

I'm in Portland.

No way.

What are you doing?

Eating dinner.

Where? I'm eating dinner.

I looked up to see Jodie in the doorway. She was downstairs at the same restaurant.

So I guess we picked the right place to end the night.

Day Two Report Part 1

Our second day of Beer Tour was a slow meander up the Maine coast. We land first in Kennebunk at the Federal Jack's Brewery at 11am.

Oddly the power went out just before we got there and the staff apologized they wouldn't be able to cook anything. "That's okay: we're just here for the beer!" we replied. So no problem, we got seated and delivered two orders of the sampler. Oddly most of the beer was from Shipyard Brewery. Chris dutifully took notes of all our tastings. Favorites of the group were the Brown Ale and Chamberlain. I loved the taste of the 'Taint Town a British bitter. (Read the story of Taint Town here.) Taint town unfortunately was the only beer not sold in the gift shop; it was only available in the bar.

Next stop was Biddeford-Saco. On an island between the two towns is a charming repurposed industrial complex with the Run of the Mill Public House and Brewery.

This was my favorite brewpub on the trip. A dark interior with rustic wood everywhere, the big windows opened up to the water. The food was amazing. The cooks weren't thrown off by my request for a reuben vegi burger. The beer was cleverly named: Alewife Ale, Bug Lager, Smelt Camp Strong Ale, Impact Pale Ale, and Cassk Kickin IPA. Folks were fans of the Alewife Ale and Tarbox Cream Stout.

Our trick to making friends everywhere was to announce that we were on a beer tour. The staff were all helpful in making suggestions for our next stop and we learned a bit about the politics and economics of breweries in Maine. Apparently the 'cute and local' Shipyard owned a lot of the breweries we were planning on visiting. Whenever a brewery wasn't doing too well Shipyard would buy it up. Or if a brewery grew past it's capacity they'd give their recipe to Shipyard to brew.

Well, there went our quaint little brewery fantasy. Turns out Shipyard owns Seadog, Casco Bay and Kennebunk. (Later in their brewery we'll see Peak Organic boxes in their brewery too.)

After Saco it was just another hour to Portland. . .